


Centipede

by forgotten_silence



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: AU, Abuse, Angst, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 02:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13754148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgotten_silence/pseuds/forgotten_silence
Summary: [Re-telling of the frog prince] In which Kaneki is a centipede and Touka finds him in the garden[AU].Excerpt:“Who are you?” asked Touka, getting back to her feet and dusting off her frock.“I am the Centipede,” said the centipede with a wave of its antennae, “Who are you?”





	Centipede

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot, and a retelling of the frog prince wrote some few years ago.

It began when Auntie Eto’s ring fell down a rabbit hole. Touka wasn’t supposed to take out Auntie’s jewelry, but she needed them to be a princess, so she’d borrowed some with every intention of putting them back before Auntie found out.

And then, just like that, the ring had fallen off her finger and into a rabbit hole. It was one of Auntie’s favourite rings too, the one with the sapphire stone, and try as she would, Touka couldn’t reach far enough into the burrow to get the ring. The she had the brilliant idea of poking at it with a stick, but it only pushed the ring further down the hole and out of sight.

 _Auntie is going to be very angry with me_ , she thought, and with that came the familiar prick of tears behind her eyelids. She wiped them away, but more kept coming, until she was sitting near the rabbit hole and crying.

“Why are you crying, little thing?” said the rabbit hole.

This made her stop crying, and she peered curiously down the hole. Had it been her imagination? Touka blinked and wiped her eyes.

“Well? I asked you why you were crying,” said the rabbit hole. It really was talking, wasn’t it?

“My-my ring fell down,” she said.

“ _Your_  ring?” asked the rabbit hole. There was the sound of something skittering up the soil before two black antennae came to view and a huge centipede reared its head from the hole. Touka leapt back with a shriek, and the centipede gave a scratchy little laugh.

“Who are you?” asked Touka, getting back to her feet and dusting off her frock.

“I am the Centipede,” said the centipede with a wave of its antennae, “Who are you?”

“I’m Touka. Kirishima Touka,” said Touka. “What are you doing in a rabbit hole, Mr. Centipede?” she asked, the ring momentarily forgotten. If Touka had been a little older, she would have questioned a talking centipede, and she would most definitely have been scared of it. But Touka was only five, and that a centipede could talk made sense to her, and  _because_  the centipede was talking to her, she wasn’t scared of it.

“This is my home,” said the centipede. “I was sleeping when your ring hit me on the head and woke me up.”

“Oh,” said Touka. “It is Auntie’s ring,” and then a thought occurred to her. “Mr.Centipede, can you get the ring for me?”

The centipede laughed again, the same scratchy laugh that was not very pleasant to the ears. “I could, ” it said. “But you must do something for me, little Touka.”

“Okay,” agreed Touka. “What should I do?”

“I want to belong to you. Like how your toys belong to you, and that little rabbit your father gave you for your birthday,” said the centipede, clambering up a rock with its tiny yellow legs.

“Like a pet?” asked Touka.

“Sort of,” said the centipede, “But you must let me come with you wherever you go. You must let me live in your room and sleep on your bed, and go with you when you go out for walks.”

 _You’re ugly_ , thought Touka unkindly.  _I don’t want you._  And so she told it that.

“Ah, but I am what I am, and you are what you are,” said the centipede. “I suppose it can’t be helped then. Farewell, my child.” He made an arc on the rock and slid down to the ground, his many, many legs making a clickety–clack sound on the rock as he moved.

“Wait, My ring. You said you could get it,” said Touka.

The Centipede paused, and its head turned to look at her. “I can,” he said, “But you must agree to let me belong to you.”

“I can’t,” said Touka, “Auntie won’t allow you to come into the house.”

“Well, I can’t get the ring then,” said the centipede. “Good day.” And once again, it skittered around towards the hole.

“Wait!” cried Touka, “You can come with me.”

And that was how Touka got back her Auntie’s ring, and the centipede got a new owner. The centipede never left her side, and although it was ugly and had a hundred legs, it had the most brilliant stories. 

Every night, after she finished with the washing, it would tell her a story, and then it would curl up on the bed next to her and its antennae would droop as it went to sleep. Touka loved the stories it told, even the gory ones like the one about the magician who put a centipede in a boy’s ear and turned him into a centipede.

“Are you the boy?” she asked the centipede after it finished the story, eyes wide and breath held in apprehension. The centipede laughed its familiar laugh, and its antennae tilted towards her. “I’m a Centipede, Touka,” it said, “I’m not a boy.”

The Centipede talked only to her, and it had a habit of disappearing whenever someone else came around. Outside the garden, it lurked about in the flowerbeds while she and Ayato played, but never came out into the open. She wished Ayato could meet the centipede, and hear its stories with her, because neither of them had had any bedtime stories since they came to live with Auntie. But other than that, she was glad the centipede kept out of sight. If Auntie or any of the servants saw it, they were sure to kill it.

The centipede loved to read, although it couldn’t turn the pages for itself. Touka got into the habit of borrowing Auntie’s books, the big ones she couldn’t read, and the centipede read them to her. Sometimes they were stories, but more often than not, they were very boring books about plants and the human body and Touka understood little of it.

As she grew a bit older, the centipede  helped her with her reading and writing. It sat with her while she read, correcting her words, even helped with her mathematics and the sciences. It was much better at explaining things than Big Madame, who was their Governess, and she had fun learning with it. She wished it would allow Ayato to join their lessons.

“I’m yours,” said the centipede when she asked it if it would teach him, “Not Ayato’s.”

When Ayato turned five, Auntie decided that it would be best for him to grow up with other boys, and no matter how much she pleaded or how much Ayato cried, she wouldn’t change her mind. So, it was with a tearful farewell and much kicking and screaming that Ayato was carted off to Yoshimura’s school for boys.

Touka was miserable for a long time afterwards. She cried well into the night and the following day, and refused to get up from the bed for a week. When it was bath time, she had to be dragged into the bathroom by the maids and dunked into the bathtub. She refused to eat the trays they brought up to her room, and she refused to go down for dinner. She even refused to sit for lessons with Big Madame, earning herself a severe beating, after which a very livid Auntie told her that she would be sent off to the orphanage if she refused to behave.

The centipede was her only comfort. It stayed by her side while she cried, and ran through her hair with its tiny little legs, and said comforting stuff like “It’s okay, Touka,” and “you’re going to be fine,” and “I’ll be here, I promise.” It told her to eat, and it told her she’d die of starvation if she didn’t, but Touka was more sad than she was hungry. It made silly little jokes, and told her silly little stories, but Touka refused to budge.

The night she got the beating, it got some kind of leaves from the garden, and it ran about her back, spreading crushed leaves with its legs and stomach. Afterwards, the pain numbed down a bit and then it told her stories until she fell into an exhausted sleep. The next morning, despite the ache in her back, the centipede made her get up.

“You can’t behave like this anymore,” it told her disapprovingly. “No matter how long you sulk, Ayato is not going to come back. You’re only going to hurt yourself.”

“I don’t care,” said Touka, “It’s not fair.”

“Life is never fair,” replied the centipede. “Tell me, what good does it do for you to sulk like this? You’ll just be hungry and miserable, and you’ll get another beating,  _and_  they’ll send you away. Do you want that?”

Touka shook her head.

“But,” it continued, skittering up her leg so that it could rest upon her raised knees and look into her eyes, “If you study, and are well behaved, you’ll be well fed, and you’ll learn, and then one day, you can leave this place and go to see your brother.”

Touka didn’t want to listen to the centipede, but the more it talked, the more she realized that he was sort of right, and so, two weeks after Ayato left, Touka finally got back into routine. She was very glad for the centipede, who was the only friend she had.

In time, Touka grew, and the centipede stayed with her, just like it had always been, since the day she’d taken it in. She took the centipede wherever she went, and the centipede went with her gladly. It still told her stories, but as she grew, the bedtime stories became long talks about this and that, and they talked the way only the closest of friends did. If Touka had anything to tell, the centipede was the first person she wanted to tell it to. If Touka wanted an opinion about something, it was the first person she asked.

When she turned seventeen, her Aunt decided that it was time to find her a match. “A rich, well to do man,” said Auntie with a smile that made Touka feel a little sick in the stomach. Auntie’s ideas never fared well for her.

The rich man was a huge, beefy man well into his forties, with a huge moustache and a mean look on his face. When her aunt led her to stand before him, he eyed her greedily and then his mouth stretched into a sick sort of smile.

“She will do,” he said, still eyeing her, “How old are you, girl?” His hand reached out towards her face, and instinctively, she recoiled. Her aunt’s fingers dug into her shoulders painfully and she felt herself being pushed forward.

“She’s seventeen,” it was her aunt who replied.

“A little old,” said the man, and Touka felt her stomach churn. Just what kind of monster was he? “I suppose I can make do,” then he grinned and stepped towards her, revealing a row of golden teeth. “Don’t be shy Touka, you’re going to make me a fine wife.”

If it wasn’t for her aunt forcibly restraining her, Touka thought she might have run up to her bedroom and never come out.

It was nearly half an hour after that that she was finally allowed to go upstairs. Her aunt was still discussing the finer details of her engagement when she made her way out of the drawing room. Touka thought she heard her aunt say something to the man about the gold he owed her. _It would be surprising if Aunt Eto doesn’t get a lot of small mountain of gold out of this_ , she thought bitterly as she locked herself in and sank on the bed.

Her days of freedom was coming to an end. Her aunt seemed eager to send her off as quickly as possible, and she’d been told that she’d be wed by the end of the month, which was just a week and a half away. Touka sighed. Even the thought of that man made her want to throw up.

Then again, what choice did she have? She could run away, but she had no way to support herself, and if she refused- she wouldn’t be able to refuse. She still remembered Ayato, five years old and kicking and crying, but he’d still been taken away.

Whether her answer was yes or not, she would be wedded to that man.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice the centipede until he nudged her gently on her hand. “What’s wrong?” it said.

“Weren’t you lurking around downstairs, listening to us?” snapped Touka. The centipede had the most annoying habit of asking her stuff when it already knew everything. She’d seen it disappearing under the sofa in the drawing room, so she knew that it had heard everything that had been said.

“Yes,” it agreed. “But why are you so upset?”

“Why are you asking me if you already know?” she glared at the centipede, and brushed it off her lap and onto the bed.

“You don’t have to marry him if you don’t want to,” the centipede offered, as if it was the most logical thing in the world.

“You know I don’t have a choice,” said Touka, “If you don’t have anything sympathetic to say, I’d rather you shut up.”

“But you have a choice,” said the centipede. “You always have a choice, Touka.”

“This is not the time to talk in riddles,” Touka warned him.

The centipede cocked its head to a side and regarded her with what she supposed was a serious expression, although it was hard to tell because it was a centipede. Then it said, “What if you married me?”

If it was any other day, she would have laughed, or she would have humoured the centipede, maybe. But as it was, she snapped, “I don’t need your stupid jokes right now. Go away.”

But the centipede persisted. “I’m not joking,” it said, “Do you remember the story I told you about the boy who turned into a centipede?”

Touka was getting very tired of the way the centipede was behaving. So she gave him a look and said, “What of it?”

“What if I told you it was true?” the centipede continued, “What if I told you I was the boy?”

Touka let out a very unladylike like snort. “That’s not possible. People don’t turn into centipedes,” she said.

“And yet you’re talking to one. Does that seem normal to you?” it asked, tilting its head to a side. At that moment, it occurred to Touka that she hadn’t thought about it at all. The centipede had come to her life when she was just a child, and as a child, she’d accepted the fact that it talked without any question. Then, the centipede had become such a huge part of her life- it had become her teacher and confider, her best friend- and talking to him was so normal that she’d never given it a second thought.

“If I’m talking to you, is it that impossible that someone could have turned a human into a centipede?” maybe it was her imagination, but Touka thought the centipede looked sad and worn out.

“Do you care about me, Touka?” asked the centipede.

“Yes, yes ofcourse,” she said. “You’re my best friend.”

“Then can you take a leap of faith? You don’t have to believe me, but can you try doing what I say?”

“I could,” said Touka. Did the centipede really belive it was human?

“Then kiss me,” said the centipede, looking at her.

“What?” If anything, Touka wasn’t expecting that. Then again, she thought, they’d read enough books together, including fairy tales where animals turned into princess. Maybe he really thought he could help her; maybe he truly believed he would turn into a prince and rescue her. But the centipede was usually very level-headed.

Then again, she reasoned, he is just a centipede, and their minds work differently from ours.

So she took the centipede into he hand, and brought it close to her face. Then, she leaned forward and kissed it on top of its head. “There,” she said, placing it back on the bed. “You’re still a-”

But something was happening. She stopped mid-sentence and stared in disbelief as the centipede grew larger and taller, until it was five feet in length. Then as she watched, its antennae receded back inside its head, and four of its legs grew and the rest receded. It morphed and changed, and writhed as its skin and body changed, and then, there was a human boy curled up on her bed, clad in some sort of black clothing, a mop of white hair on his head.

For a moment, Touka forgot to breath. Then she said, “Ce-centipede?”

The boy sat up with some difficulty, and a pair of cool grey eyes regarded her. “Who?” he asked in a raspy voice that dissolved into a fit of cough.

“Do you- do you want some water?” She asked, edging towards the bed, her heart beating furiously in her chest.

The boy looked at her, and then looked at his surroundings, a confused look on his face. Then he said, “Who are you? Where am I?”

He doesn’t remember me, she realized. She looked at his face, searching for a sign of recognition.

There was none.


End file.
